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What are some Universal Values....
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well, since nobody wants to reply to my comment, i'll just keep on rambling by myself 😛
how do people find "universal values"? by looking at values held in societies... right? it is assumed that a "universal value" is so, because it has survived the test of time, and is present in all societies, correct? but this means that we can never know "universal values" because we have no guarantee that the societies we see will stand the test of time.
how do people find "universal values"? by looking at values held in societies... right? it is assumed that a "universal value" is so, because it has survived the test of time, and is present in all societies, correct? but this means that we can never know "universal values" because we have no guarantee that the societies we see will stand the test of time.
Kadarin
Lifer
From an ethics standpoint, I don't believe that there are any. Values such as "the right to exist", "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", "thou shalt not steal" et al are cultural artifacts. Mankind invented culture as a means of coexisting, but the underlying rules that provide a basis for each culture's function may be different depending on the local environment that formed the birthplace of that culture.
Even religious beliefs are cultural artifacts, and are not based on absolutes.
Even religious beliefs are cultural artifacts, and are not based on absolutes.
man, i wish it hasn't been 4 years since i took my last philosophy class... i forget some really helpful stuff when i don't use it.
anyway, as aphex points out above me, time isn't really important. one cannot completely guarantee anything forever because we don't know everything. it was a fallacy of some sort, i think. but because of this, we have to accept certain ideas (and no, universal values isn't one of them... yet 😉) in order to have any kind of debate of any kind. otherwise, there's no point to any of this and it's all meaningless (another point of view, for another thread maybe)
Kadarin
Lifer
Remember that societies like the Aztecs and the Incas did not collapse from within. They collapsed due to the influence of an outside culture (the Spanish) which possessed superior technology. Had the Spanish not arrived, it's possible that the Aztecs and the Incas might have survived to the present day. The Aztecs valued human sacrifice, which is something not valued today in many cultures.
And.. the question was what some of those values are.. so please elaborate.
Lastly, some people in this thread are confusing ethical values with verifiable facts (i.e. the earth is a spheroid).
lukatmyshu
Senior member
Here's my thought on the subject ... I figure values are universal to all Societies if they can be logically consistent with the definition of society. A Society is any collection of humans (since we're limiting our discussion to this planet) that works together for a common interest. So for a value to Universal to all societies I would say that it can't contradict this definition. For instance I would say that indiscriminate murder is a Universal Bad Value because in a society where individuals were murdering each other eventually you would have zero persons. Other than those values, I would say the rest are constructs of individual societies.
Skyclad1uhm1
Lifer
Thanks to our natural instincts family is valued to some extend allover the world, for the purpose of survival of the species. And most people value their own ideas, values, habits, religion and culture above that of everyone else 😛
oh man, it's getting late and i have to take on all these people myself?!?
you're right... kinda. don't you think there might be a reason why some (not all, but some) of these "cultural artifacts" seem... "universal?" let's put it this way: you're just a regular guy in 8th century... anywhere, where there's a recognizable society. you kill someone because you feel like it, and freely admit it. are you not accountable in any way for what you did? no, because any society that can stand up on its own has to adopt some values, otherwise wanton killing and destruction would destroy it. these values are almost exactly the same in any society, because chaos would ensue and humans wouldn't have been able to leave the caves to progress without a form of society based on some values, that as time went on, were discovered to be universal. there's the answer, boys and girls: universal values exist. even take animals: cannabilism is, for the most part, rare, and only occurs when necessary. instinctively, animals universally respect the rights of others in their species to exist (without fighting over something, i guess). it's not a learned trait, so where'd it come from? it's an inherent, universal value.
you're right... kinda. don't you think there might be a reason why some (not all, but some) of these "cultural artifacts" seem... "universal?" let's put it this way: you're just a regular guy in 8th century... anywhere, where there's a recognizable society. you kill someone because you feel like it, and freely admit it. are you not accountable in any way for what you did? no, because any society that can stand up on its own has to adopt some values, otherwise wanton killing and destruction would destroy it. these values are almost exactly the same in any society, because chaos would ensue and humans wouldn't have been able to leave the caves to progress without a form of society based on some values, that as time went on, were discovered to be universal. there's the answer, boys and girls: universal values exist. even take animals: cannabilism is, for the most part, rare, and only occurs when necessary. instinctively, animals universally respect the rights of others in their species to exist (without fighting over something, i guess). it's not a learned trait, so where'd it come from? it's an inherent, universal value.
Kadarin
Lifer
Every society must have a value system, or that society would certainly not function as a society. So maybe a prohibition against indiscriminate killing would be considered a universal value (certainly not from a moral standpoint, but a practical one). However, "the right to exist" isn't necessarily universal. In the modern United States, the death penalty is one example of that, and the right to use deadly force in self-defense is another. However, a couple of hundred years ago, the practice of "dueling" was accepted, where you could challenge someone to a duel for a perceived wrong.
"Instinctively, animals universally respect the rights of others in their species to exist.." Not necessarily a human value, given the examples of the Holocaust and Serbian "ethnic cleansing". Certainly there are Arabs in the world who would love to exterminate the Jews...
The fact that many cultures are based on certain values does not mean that those values are universal; you cannot for sure state that some new culture won't develop (based on circumstances, a la "The Time Machine"?) which adopts an entirely new set of standards. For example, in the movie "Logan's Run", a future city's inhabitants have accepted the concept that people are not supposed to live past the age of 30. Presumably, this is in response to scarcity of resources, given that the city is apparently the only remaining pocket of civilization in some sort of post-apocalyptic world.
and those may not even be "human", at least as we know ourselves. the only thing I can think of (although there are certainly individuals or small groups that would not fit this mold) is that all societies share the value of the perpetuation of human life (although which lives are the ones that survive would be up for debate or follow varying rules).
Skyclad1uhm1
Lifer
Not even self preservation is universal if you look at it that way. I presumed you meant values which can be found anywhere in the world rather than something each and every person has.
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